MotoGP 2006: Official Review | Ramblin Man Films

This book is an excellent resource for those who are looking for a good movie to watch. Like any other “list” it has its’ limits. No two peoples likes and dislikes are exactly the same. Thus there will be disagreements over what is included in the “Best 1000 Movies”. Frankly though, the disagreements will probably be over what was included in this book rather than what was excluded; the top 1000 certainly covers a lot of ground. As I came across a movie I thought was undeserving, I thought to myself, “How could they include this movie and leave out…” Strangely enough, every movie I thought to finish the sentence with turned out to be in the book. OK, so it IS short on some of the great comedy of the past; I believe “Duck Soup” is the only Marx Brothers entry. But, then, I didn’t need this book to tell me how good the Marx Brother movies are.

What is has done for me, once I stopped gawking and started to put it to work, is introduce me to a lot of good movies that I would have missed otherwise. I’ve been going to the video stores lately looking for the “older” movies of the 80′s and 90′s rather that the meager selections of new releases. Agreed, most of the ones I’ve checked out have not been on anyone’s top ten list. However, they have been enjoyable and better than most of the movies I’ve seen on TV of late.

I do have a couple of mild criticisms of this book. The first thing I would “criticize” is the format. (It may also be its’ strength so I proceed caustiously along this line). The format is to list the movies with their original New York Times review. That’s very well except that the “Times” panned a number of these movies in their reviews. “Bonnie and Clyde” comes to mind as a movie that received a particularly bad review. Now we all know that “Bonnie and Clyde” is a deserving member of the Top 1000 because we’ve either seen it or know its’ reputation. But what about the lesser movies that we’ve neither seen nor heard much about. How are we to be inspired to go out and watch based solely on a negative review. Some historical perspective could have helped. However, if that were the case, they’d probably still be writing the book. Another “criticism” I have is how I was struck with the notion that most of the movies are of a more recent vintage. I actually sat down and totalled the number of movies in the list by decade (yes, I DO have other things to do with my life). I had always heard that the 1930′s were the Golden Age of Cinema but the results suggest otherwise (at least in the eyes of these NY Times editors). There were two movies in the 1920′s (kudos to “Disraeli” and “The Jazz Singer”), 92 in the 30′s, 129 in the 40′s, 146 in the 50′s, 150 in the 60′s, 156 in the 70′s, 200 in the 80′s and 128 in the 90′s (the latest movies I noticed were in 1998). Thus the new Golden Age would seem to be the 1980′s. Why doesn’t seem that way in reality? There was an art to movie-making in the pre-1970′s that challenged the productions to use more symbolism. Now that we have the technology and lack of inhibitions to show just about anything and everything on film, there seems to be little reason to be suggestive rather than blunt. I suspect that the reason the number are so slanted towards recent vintage may be the failure of the editors to have seen more of the great movies of the past. Having said that, I close with thanks for the effort that went into this book and the excellent resource it will serve for anyone who’s looking for a good movie to watch.